Monday, February 26, 2018

This continues the series of wrapping cloths inspired by the Korean tradition of "bojagin," gift-wrapping cloths that are stitched with a specific object in mind. See the previous post—The Gift of Travel—for more about the inspiration and backstory.

This cloth has the subject of currency as a focus. Materials include a U.S. one dollar bill; tiny shell beads that harken back to Native American currency; and a 150-year-old Indian temple sari, itself a form of currency and stored wealth.

Detail

Detail

I particularly like the section of sari cloth below, where you can see a mended, rewoven section done many, many decades ago by an earlier owner.

Detail

And now to the object to be wrapped: an old brass coin bank shaped like a cow.

The object to be wrapped

And finally, the wrapped object. The Korean belief is that a wrapped object, by the very nature of being wrapped, contains good luck.